Longtime Point Reyes Station resident Hathaway Barry set out eight years ago with a burning question. Bringing her past experience as a mediator, an educator and a poet, she asked: What happens to boys as they grow up? Her new book, “Boy: A Woman Listening to Men and Boys,” threads together first-person accounts from over 85 interviews she conducted with boys and men of all ages, ethnicities, sexual identities and backgrounds.
A few central prompts guided her, including, “What would you like women to understand?” As she heard unexpected words or themes come up over and over in responses, she added questions. The book’s three sections, “Some Challenges of ‘Being a Man,’” “Violence,” and “Don’t Know” thematize a selection of quotes and longer personal narratives. Through these intimate anecdotes on a great range of subjects—from social pressure to violence, sex, work and love—the reader accesses some of the less discussed yet ubiquitous aspects of manhood.
Ms. Barry’s mission to listen without blame or judgement leads to unique and vulnerable testimony. “Sometimes, in the midst of an interview, I was aware how rare this kind of time with another human being is,” she wrote in her introduction. “Like when we first fall in love or when a child is born or a loved one is dying. Clear, uninterrupted time to simply listen.”
The Light sat down with Ms. Barry last week to learn how she elicited such exposing opinions and feelings about manhood, and why she cared about elevating male voices in the first place.
Point Reyes Light: What inspired you to start this project?
Hathaway Barry: It was sparked by a very challenging love relationship that I couldn’t understand. I thought well, either I give up on men or I listen more deeply. I was in so much pain because I hadn’t ever felt that depth of connection in a relationship before. But I thought: What if I don’t make anyone wrong or right?
It first started when I had two guests staying over. One man was in his 20s and the other in his 40s. We stayed up late talking, and I starting asking them some of the things I would have liked to ask this other fellow, who kept disappearing. And we had so much fun. The next morning they said, ‘Hey, we should do that more often.’ And then they said you should talk to da da da… and that’s how this grapevine of connections started.
I didn’t know what I was doing, and I really didn’t set out to write a book. I was in pain and I was trying to ease the pain. The best thing when there’s pain is to move into it and see what it’s about.
Light: When did it become a book?
Hathaway: After a while, some writer friends said, ‘I hope you’re recording this.’ I wasn’t because, with my technology skills, a recorder was pretty daunting. But I did go buy a recorder, and then I started transcribing the conversations.
Oh my god, I was acquiring an immense amount of transcripts. I remember taking them to a friend’s guest house in Arizona and spreading them out all over the room… they covered the couch, the chair, they brought another chair… and then I just sat in the middle of them on my knees and threw up my hands: Okay, guys, what are you saying? I was listening to the listening. I would pick up a pile and say, this kind of goes with this and that with that. Once I distilled a little, I realized that, oh, this is turning into a book.
Many times, someone said something and really believed he was the only one who had that feeling. I wanted to give back to the guys I interviewed who had let me in on their male world by sharing this book—and that was enough. If it has a life beyond that, that’s great.
Light: You write that what you learned was “more of an un-doing, an un-learning—a wearing out of a lot of my ideas and assumptions.” What surprised you the most?
Hathaway: The prevalence of violence that boys are growing up with. That was the thing that really blasted my heart; I just didn’t get it. As a woman, I knew more about the violence that women grew up with. But somehow, probably because men aren’t encouraged to talk about it, I just didn’t get how hard this is for men… And, well, it sure makes sense how the world is the way it is.
I kept seeing how little help they have to deal with vulnerable feelings; human feelings like fear and sadness were what I heard underneath everything else. There’s not a lot of support and not a lot of know-how to stay with those more tender feelings and let them turn into something else. One guy told me that there’s more permission in this culture to be violent than there is to be vulnerable.
The pressure on men, too. They were eager to share about that. And, I think the other thing was then realizing how much I’m part of this myself. Women are complicit: we are creating the culture, we aren’t separate from it. Even down to the littlest detail of how we talk to each other, how we raise our children, how we relate to our coworkers and our lovers, people on the street. It was painful to see how much I do have these unexamined expectations that I carry with me.
Light: That was one of the parts of the book that struck me most: the pressure and expectation that so many men and boys describe feeling to already know, to be the expert, to be “on top,” to have it all together. What are the stakes of not finding a way for our society to relieve this pressure?
Hathaway: I think it’s playing out in our culture and on our planet. If your training is to be a man, first of all, you’re supposed to know, which means you’ve already made up your mind. You’re supposed to show up as someone who already knows. And knowing is the opposite of youthful energy.
I was listening for that youthful aliveness, that boy. Sometimes I would have to sit for a very long time for them to drop into that. I could see all the layers of conditioning plastered over. It was scary to drop in. It was tender and vulnerable, and when have you been given permission to be tender and vulnerable? So many of these guys learned as boys that those feelings weren’t safe.
You look around and think, Oh, the stress of life, and then you have to perform this thing called “being a man.” So that became my question: I wonder if the traditional concept of “being a man” is one of a boy’s first traumas? And, is it killing life?
This is my takeaway mantra from all the listening: when I find someone’s behavior really challenging, I return to, Oh, they don’t know how. It makes me soften and be willing to feel more open and receptive to just that person in that moment, rather than relying on some idea of who they are supposed to be.
Light: You introduced the story by saying you weren’t listening for anything in particular. What was it like to just listen?
Hathaway: I made a commitment to the guys and to myself to listen, as best I could, without blame or judgment. And that was the most profound piece to me.
Deep listening, meaning really not knowing and being willing to be open to whatever arises. I also have a long practice of meditation. The more quiet and still I was able to be in myself, the more room it left the men to be themselves.
It really became a practice. And I could watch my own mind start to go there, and then I would take a breath and listen more deeply. I was training myself, in a way. And that was the pleasure in it because, inevitably, if I wasn’t actively blaming or judging, it changes the air and they begin to feel more vulnerable. We both met in a more vulnerable place. That was the fun of it, and also the poignancy.
I kept thinking, why don’t we do this more often?
Light: Did you ever worry about the conversation getting too tender or vulnerable?
Hathaway: I felt very clear about what my role was. It was not about potential romance… I really wanted to listen deeply to who these guys were and it was important, especially as a woman, to have that boundary.
Sometimes there was misunderstanding on the other end however. So I found I got better and better about focusing on the questions and my larger inquiry in order to keep very clear boundaries.
It’s a good question you’re asking because it was very intimate, and I think, for a lot of the guys, a different kind of experience than they were used to having.
Light: Historically, the voices of men are problematically dominant. And in the wake of the election, issues of sexism and misogyny are especially pertinent. How does your project fit into this conversation?
Hathaway: My experience as a mediator is that if anyone is not empathized with first, they don’t have a capacity to listen. I noticed myself kind of shrinking, doing an “us and them” with men. But no, we have to get together about something bigger than us.
I didn’t want to close my heart. That doesn’t mean I wanted to condone all behavior either. But if you’re in this system, that brotherhood of trying to be a man, maybe there’s nowhere safe to just be a human being. Women giving guys permission and also sharing in non-instructive, non-threatening ways is essential. It’s a bigger awareness: it’s a consciousness that is more expansive, more inclusive. It’s about learning how to love each other.
Light: Toward the end of the book, you include responses to the question, “What would you like for women to understand about men?” One 9-year-old says: “I think it’s kind of up to women to be helping men more because they have more tools. They’re allowed to develop those tools better. Men should get a few more tools to understand. They don’t have that many.” Has this journey changed how you relate to men?
Hathaway: Can you believe that’s a 9-year-old? I mean, come on! Some of the words from younger boys, and then the older men, they’re the best! I think, what are we doing in between?
But yes, hopefully I now relate to guys more tenderly and with more appreciation and awareness of what it’s like for them. I hope I have more awareness of my own participation and how to take responsibility for the thoughts and ideas and judgments that run through my mind.
I thought, “Grow yourself up, girl. There are bigger fish to fry here. Don’t get bogged down in all the differences.”
Light: What has the initial response to the book been?
Hathaway: Some women have told me that it has changed their view of men. One couple took it on a road trip; she read it aloud, and it stimulated conversation. I’ll be very curious to see who its main readers are. And you don’t know necessarily, because I think these things are still a little private, don’t you think? How do you put this notion, “men are hurting,” into the culture?
One guy in his 30s said, “You know, this kind of makes me want to interview women.” And I said, “Yes!” That’s the point! Truly, as a mediator I know people can’t listen until they are listened to. This is my skillful means.
I am very heartened because I do think that there is change. If what determines our future is how children are cared for, loved, listened to, then wouldn’t that be a really important thing to hold up in the culture. So [chuckle] when Hathaway rules the world, she will have every child be so treasured because really, kids are the future. Literally.
Hathaway Barry will discuss “Boy: A Woman Listening to Men and Boys” at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Find out more at listeningtomen.com.